


Where We Went

by Mirca_Mi_Eda



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: M/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6476242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirca_Mi_Eda/pseuds/Mirca_Mi_Eda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sacha and Aleks are immigrants in USA. They lived together in a RV for a short while before going separate ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where We Went

**Author's Note:**

> My descriptions of USA are pretty much my imaginations mixed with what I remember from short visits, and I am not very interested in keeping everything historically correct. This is written to be a short story of three chapters. Please tell me if you liked it! It means a lot to receive even a single word <3

I held onto him tightly as we watched the cinnamon tinted sky slowly fade darker. The wind smelled of crisp leaves and the smoke from Sachas cigarette. He bought the cheapest packs he could get his hands on, the cheapest whisky too. I never questioned him spending our small funds on drinks and smokes when we sometimes spent days sating our hunger with nothing but soup base. I didn't mind much actually, whenever I felt like complaining I would think back to our home country where we wouldn't even have water at times. It eased me, that small sting of guilt, and I enjoyed what was essentially flavored water followed by whatever Sacha shared of his whisky.  
"I'm still not used to there not being trees everywhere." Sacha said quietly, his voice riding on the wind, not more than a thought that had echoed out loud. I nodded and looked around me. There were few trees, dark and dry they reached like burnt arms out of the ground. The ground consisted of light dirt and grass patches, small elevations like the one we were sitting on. Our RV, the one I stole and that we have lived in for almost a full year now, rested behind another elevation next to the motorcycle Sacha won in an arm-wrestling contest. There were a few pots I attempted to grow food in but I still had no idea about what would grow in this climate. Where I grew up we had a small patch for grains and even smaller ones for beets and potatoes, but my home country was cold and had snow in the winter. Our new home had nothing I would concider to be winter and I wasn't used to planting in pots, but a farmer lady in our nearest town had sold me some dwarf apricots and cherries that were now growing decently. I wanted to be useful, to be more than someone good at stealing and surviving. I didn't want to be Sachas burden anymore.  
"We could probably move closer to town by now." I felt a chill as Sacha said this. I knew he was growing impatient, he was a social creature and being confined in this desert with me as his only company wasn't his ideal setting. He needed competitions, bar fights and new faces to punch, kiss or simply snort at. I didn't want to move closer to town, I wanted him for myself. He would never stay this intimate and close to me if he got more options, that was my hardest lesson to learn from spending weeks on a ship going over the Atlantic with him. I shrunk in his arms, shoulders drooping and eyebrows furrowing. I couldn't confine him, but I didn't want to let him go.  
The next time he spoke, he skipped the qualifiers. "We'll move closer, Aleks." He looked at me, searching for a reaction or a response. Finding my eyes darting away and my body shrinking even more, he sighed and stood up. "We can't live here forever. I can't get a job like this either." He left me then, dissappointed in my apprehension. I stayed there, sitting on the quilt with my knees pulled up to my chest. He had left his bottle with me so I treated myself to a couple of sips that burnt in my mouth, spred warmth in my chest. The cinnamon sky had somehow faded to a dark blue and the cold was creeping closer with the wind. I heard Sacha open the RV door and saw the light flicker on in the windows. I'd let him fall asleep before I joined him there.


	2. Where He Stayed

It became as Sacha had decided. He got us a place for the RV close to town and moved us there, then he spent the rest of the day advertising himself at places he imagined he could get a job. I stayed with the RV, carefully placing my pots at its side and caring for them before I distracted myself with cleaning our home. I wasn't afraid, I didn't fear people or anything like that, but I had always been solitary and preferred my own company before others. An annoying little thought crossed my mind, one that reminded me of how I was being a burden. It told me that I should go find work too, I couldn't stay in the RV and draw on scraps of paper while Sacha would make our living. Instinctively I touched at my throat and pushed the thought away. Where would I work without a voice? Where would I want to work? I kept on drawing instead, drawing and caring for my plants.

Sacha soon got himself a job at a farm, his English needed improvement but his strong physique was attractive to them. He would go early in the morning to work, carrying heavy boxes of animal food and sawdust or building at their new fence. After work he would wash himself and join me for dinner before he went to the bar. He had gotten himself a routine that he liked, he surrounded himself with drinking buddies and soon he came home with a dog. To Sacha, this dog was a houseguard and a companion, to me the dog was an intruder and an unwelcome guest. Sacha rarely concidered asking for my opinion, and the introduction of the dog had been sudden and without any mention beforehand. Still, it was never my place to protest. I cared little for the dog and it cared little for me. 

I wasn't very fond of having moved closer, but at least I could now easily walk over to the farmer lady that had helped me with my plants. She had a kind heart and a warm soul, helping me get my small trees growing and offering me new seeds and baskets of fruit if I helped her with small tasks. She only asked me once why I spoke so little, and when she saw how uncomfortable I got she quickly changed subject. We would have tea and freshly baked cakes in the afternoon, I never knew how she always had them ready. Sometimes she would comment on my scrawny body and she'd rush inside to pack pies for me to take home. "See, moving closer was the best choice we could have made!" was Sachas reaction whenever I served the pies for dinner. I'd hum, drowning my complaints and protests with his whisky.

Sacha still loved me. He never wanted to show it but it was easy to see from his subconcious habits of putting his arm around me whenever I was close, from how he seemed to have memorized everything I liked eating and got me these things just to watch me enjoy them, or from how he, when sleeping, would wrap his arms around my waist and pull me close. I loved him too, I can't imagine an end to my loving him. Still, something in me faded and a bitter, hard casing was starting to take shape. He sometimes skipped coming home for dinner, sometimes he'd only come home to shower before he left, sometimes he didn't come home before dinner the next day. Sometimes he would wear clothes I knew he wouldn't have bought for himself.

I wanted to stop being so loyal, to not be there for dinner waiting for him to show up if he would, I wanted to show him that I wouldn't stay forever if he treated me like this. I couldn't though, I always ended up at home in time for dinner, ready with breakfast in the morning. When he didn't come home I would surround myself with cut out drawings I had made, hanging them up to watch them spin slowly in the breeze. 

One day the farmer lady found one of my drawings that I had dropped. "What's this?" she asked, bending down behind me to pick it up, then breathing excitedly and walking up to me. "Did you draw this, Aleks?" Her name was Queenie, she had dark hair and a roman nose and she was one of my favorite subjects to draw. "It's really good!" she continued, but then she raised her eyebrow when noticing the newspaper it was drawn on. "You should be drawing on something proper. Would you draw me if I got you some materials?" I nodded slowly, shying away from her attention. I wasn't all too sure about my artistic abilities but I wanted to know how it would feel to use the right materials. Besides, she wouldn't know how much to expect from me when she had only seen the small scetch

There weren't any supply shops for artists in our small town so it took Queenie some time to purchase the materials. Her garden blossomed, both fruit blossoms and ones planted for decoration. I'd cut branches like she taught me and when it got too hot I would rest under a tree together with her fluffy grey cats. I much prefered their company over Sachas dog's. The cats were quiet, only purring, meowing and occasionally chattering at the birds in the trees. They enjoyed the sun with me without wanting more than a pat or a scratching at times. The apple trees had dropped their pink flowers to start growing apples when Queenie, instead of giving me my chores for the day, guided me to her terrace at the back of the house and gestured to a cardboard box. "I've got your things, can you work with them?"

I hesitated before I walked over, opening the box and carefully producing the items from it; a pack of charcoal pencils in different sizes, a block of thick paper, a couple of erasers and a sanding block. I examined them, amazed at holding what I judged must be very expensive articles. Things I didn't think I would ever afford. "Can you work with them?" she repeated, smiling and sitting down at a chair she had positioned opposite of the table with the box. I sat down as well and nodded to show I would try. 

The first portrait I drew of her took several days. I was too careful of wasting charcoal and paper, flinching when the tip of the pen broke or when I couldn't erase a failed line. At first we spent the whole day with me drawing her but then we decided that we couldn't just leave the garden and the last hours of the working day were to be used for the portrait. When my first drawing didn't turn out very good, she smiled and put it aside before she sat down again, motioning for me to start over. 

"Why don't you get paid, Aleks?" Sacha asked me one day when he decided to join me for dinner. He nodded at the basket of fruit and pie, then raising an eyebrow at me. "Food is all well and good, but it doesn't pay for electricity or water. You can't keep working for free like this." 

I myself thought I was being paid more than enough, but I didn't want him to know about the art materials I got to use at Queenies home. Instead I gave Sacha a small smile, tilting my head slightly. "But you don't need to pay for food when we get this much from where I work." I whispered. 

Sacha grunted and pushed at his plate. "Yeah, well, what would you do if I didn't pay for your home? Would you just go live on some street with nothing but food?" He didn't look at me as he said this, and it was all to clear he had an alterior motive asking me this. I stared at him for some seconds that felt absurdly long before I looked down at my plate. My slice of pie didn't look very appetizing anymore. "Wouldn't you live here with me?" I whispered, more quietly now. "Where would you go?" 

"Well what if I just up and died, Aleks?? You can't just depend on me being here to take care of you forever!" Sachas yelling stood in great contrast to my voice, when he grew louder I went quieter. 

"I would die too." I thought, but the very instant the thought crossed my mind I hated myself. I grasped the edge of the table to have an anchor. Then I spoke: "You can't depend on me always being here either." 

With this, I shut him up. He stared at me, then he glared. He stood up and with a quick swipe his plate was on the floor in several pieces. Without another word, he grabbed his pack of cigarettes and left. I held myself tightly as I waited for him to come back, falling asleep on the sofa several hours later. 

Queenie didn't greet me at the gate as she usually did when I came to work. I waited a while before I decided to see if she was at work at the back of the house, but then she opened her front door and called me over. "Aleks! Come meet my son!" She was bright with joy, waving for me to come closer. 

I knew of her son only from the stories she had shared while working, he was two years older than me and he moved far away from Queenie when he inherited a horse farm but she didn't want to leave her house. Now I saw him for the first time and I quickly noticed his own roman nose, identical to Queenies. He was as dark as her but tall and well built. I felt something warm and trembling grow in my stomach, reaching for my chest. 

"You're Aleks right? I'm Marcus." he said, holding out his hand for me. I took it and held it for too long, Queenie laughed and patted my back. "Aleks is terribly shy, but he is an amazing artist. Especially being self-taught! Now, show him what I asked you to bring him." 

Marcus nodded and went over to his suitcase and I looked at Queenie, wanting to ask her what I had to expect and why she had even asked him to bring anything, but I was to uncertain to speak. Soon, Marcus came back with a giftwrapped box that he offered me. I hardly dared remove the thread and wrapping, I kept glancing at Queenie but she smiled to encourage me. Soon I found myself sitting there with a box of watercolours and a pack of paintbrushes. I immidiately put them away and stood up, nodding at them before I walked over to the door. This kindness was new to me, and it frightened me. I couldn't tell what they wanted, what they would demand in return for the gifts. When I reached for the door, Marcus had hurried up to me and gently took my hand in his. The warmth I had felt in my stomach now spread from where he touched me.

"I'm sorry Aleks, it seems pretty sudden but my mother really likes you. She's only getting you these things because she wants you to be an artist, okay?" Marcus smiled, slowly pulling me away from the door. "And also, she probably wants you to paint her." He chuckled as he said this, leading me back to Queenie who came to pat my back while pretending to be upset with what Marcus had said about her. "Now, Aleks, you'll come here and eat with us. You can't have me bragging about you to Marcus and then leave before he gets the chance to meet you!" 

That was the first time I wasn't home for dinner.


	3. Where I'm Going

Sacha was quiet on the evening he finally betrayed me. He had come straight home after work and hadn't kicked off his shoes, instead gently pulling them off and placing them at the wall before he sat down at the table. I left the small and colorful birds I was making a garland out of and took Queenies meat-pie to the table before I sat down with Sacha, but after seeing his guilty eyes and clenched teeth I pushed the pie away and waited. Patience had long been a virtue of mine but this evening I had none, I knew what message I was waiting for and I wanted it done with. Still, I didn't know what word would coax him out of his silence, would I start off angry? Would I spit words at him? Would I act worried? I felt empty and pulled in many directions, strangled and on the verge of exploding. Finally he sat up straight and met my eyes, but I couldn't have expected the words he chose.  
"It's not working. You and me, that is." he said with a forced calm, through his clenched teeth. His eyes flickered away when I tried to meet them, his ears turned a bright shade of pink. "So I'm moving out. You can have the RV."  
I could hardly tell if he had punched me in the stomach for real or if that was just how his words had struck me. Sentencens stirred in my mind, spiraling around and messing about. I wanted to scream at him: Of course we weren't working together when he never saw me except for one dinner a week or when he came home late and I pretended to be asleep. He was the reason we weren't working! He was the one who stopped caring, who wanted to forget, who had found someone new... I stopped breathing, feeling blood rush to my face.  
"I'm sorry, Aleks." he said with a voice I very well knew to be him lying. He had used the same voice when he introduced us at the ship that took us to America, when he pretended to like someone so he could gain. I once again felt the air punched out of me, tears blurring my eyes but something bitter in me grew hard and cold, my grief over being abandoned turned to anger at being treated like this.   
"You're not." I hardly had a voice, but the voice I had cut sharp. I could almost see it slice his face like one of my knives, the blood trickling down his open mouth, following the shape of his widened eyes. "You know me, I know you. I know your voice."   
Sacha stared at me, his cheast heaving slowly. I knew he had planned every sentence he had meant to use but now I had cut through them, tore up his plans, his perfect idea of how easy this would be. How easily he would fool me with that voice of his. Now he tried planning something new, something that would convince and persuade. "Aleks... I am sorry." he tried again, this time firmer, stronger.  
I imagined my bitterness blooming inside me like one of Queenies rhodondendrons, something too big for my small body, too mighty for my quiet self. It scared me at first, it was much too big and I feared it would swallow me whole. Then, it stopped pushing at the inside of my body, it stopped expanding and instead merged with me, spreading a warmth I could regognize but not place. It softened my face and spread a calm. I had known what was coming, I had known Sacha would leave me. He would grow bored of his old things like he always did, he would grow bored of whatever it was he was leaving me for too. I got up and with a calm I hardly knew I could possess I put away the pie and pulled Sachas arm until he slowly stood up, staring at me. Then I put my arms around him, placing my cheek to his chest and made sure I would never forget the sound of his heart beating.   
Sacha stood uncertain, arms slightly raised to defend himself but then he seemed to understand and placed them around me, pulling me close and placing his lips to my hair. "I'm sorry." he murmured, this time he respected me enough not to lie. For some reason he now understood what he was doing, that he wasn't leaving a faceless being but abandoning a friend, a former lover. Maybe he now knew that I deserved more than his excuses.   
"Take your things when you go, you can't come back for anything forgotten." I whispered, hugging him a bit tighter before I let go of him. "And before you leave I want their name."  
He seemed surprised but then he smiled, chuckling and rubbing at his neck. "Nothing escapes you." He gathered his things and the drawings I had given him before he talked to me again, smiling with a bittersweetness I had never seen in him before. His calm must be the result of my own, I thought. "His name is Ethan." Sacha opened the door and stepped out but turned to me once more. "Good luck, little mouse."   
I hadn't heard my nickname in a long time and it made me step back a bit. I could only nod at him and watch him go, imagining me running after him and begging him to come back. I could make him realize what he was leaving, that I was better because I knew him, because he knew me. We had been together for so long, I knew what he had been through! Then the warmth spread in me again and I closed the door.   
____________________________________________________________________________  
When Marcus once more visited Queenie I remembered where I recognized the warmth from. It spread through me from the hand he shook mine with, from his smile, from his gentle way of touching my arm when he spoke with me. I smiled like I never had before when I was with him. He would find me resting under trees and sit down next to me so I could lean against him, he started showing up outside the RV to walk me over to Queenies house, whenever he could find time he would spend it with me. I found it strange how fond I grew of his company, at first I assumed it was my need for attention and affection with Sacha gone but soon I realized it was more than that.   
When he left again I longed for him. I found myself thinking about him while I worked, drawing his face while I sat scribbling. Queenie easily caught on and when she found me daydreaming she would laugh and nickname me with the swooning lovers from her books.   
What finally changed my situation was when her age caught up with her and she fell ill. I stayed with her everyday until Marcus came back, determined to move her to his home. That's when he turned to my sleep-deprived being and took my hands in his.  
"Come with us, Aleks." he said, meeting my eyes straight on and trying to seem strong but his trembling lip gave him away. "I've made preparations for you to live there, a bedroom with an art studio right beside it. Your own balcony where you could paint... Would you come with us?"  
I thought I was dreaming at first, tilting my head and freeing my hand from his to touch his face. Was he really here? Suggesting things that I thought I could only dream about? When I touched him I knew he was there and I shook myself awake, stepping back and looking at him with eyes widened. "C-come with you?" I whispered with my accented English, then I whispered in my own tongue: "Do you really mean that?"  
Marcus smiled, confused at my own languages sudden appearence. "Please come with us. Both my mother and me would love if you'd concider it." he carefully pulled me closer, holding my hands lightly so I wouldn't feel trapped or pulled. "I would love... I would love for you to be there." he continued in a lower voice, his face fading into a deep red.  
In my internal world eternities passed, dreams dancing with thoughts and the things I could see and hear. I thought about Sacha, about my home country, Queenie and her cats, Marcus and his warmth. I thought about what it would mean to move, to be a part of their family and to mean so much to someone who wasn't Sacha. In the external world, it only took a couple of seconds for Marcus to kiss me. It took fewer for me to put my arms around him and kiss him back.   
Queenies life and possessions were mixed with mine as we packed everything into the RV. The plants that could be potted were placed next to mine, carefully padded and taken care of before we closed the door and hoped for the best. The grey cats shared a large basket in the backseat next to me. I hadn't felt a need to tell Sacha I was leaving, we had already said our goodbyes. He hadn't returned and I hadn't expected him to. For his future, as with mine, I can only hope for the best. To a life I never expected to be mine and a family I never expected to share, that is where I'm going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my short three-parter. I hope you enjoyed it, and remember that I'll be grateful for even the smallest comment!  
> While this is the last part of this story, I am pretty sure I'll write more about this AU, so if you actually want more then don't give up hope! :D   
> Also, if you write about this AU please send me a link! I would absolutely love to read it <3


End file.
